Navigating Challenges: Construction Business Growth in a Competitive Market

Interview Transcription –

Navigating Challenges: Construction Business Growth in a Competitive Market

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Welcome to the Proof Point Podcast, where we decode digital success one click at a time. We share key takeaways fueled by data and insights that your team can implement today to drive growth. Now, let’s get started.

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This is Stacie Porter Bilger, your host for the Proof Point Podcast, where I feature B2B and D2C businesses, and thought leaders sharing marketing data tactics, sales strategies and leadership insights that will kickstart your growth in this rapidly changing digital space. This episode is brought to you by Proof Digital. Proof Digital is a strategic and creative performance marketing agency.

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We partner with companies to create data-fueled marketing sales funnels and overall growth strategies.Visit proofdigital.com to learn more. Today, we’re really going to jump in to talk about the construction industry and that market.

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And we have a guest today who’s going to provide us some insights on building a company and building a brand. Our guest today is Michael Key. Michael is the founder and president of Owen Key Construction Services, OKCS, a company focused on providing quality oversight in design and construction for their clients to find the most value in every project.

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Before starting OKCS, Michael served as VP of construction for Milhouse, which is a national multifamily developer where he oversaw all construction across the country. Over the past 10 years, Michael has had most of the experience in the urban mixed project space. He started his career with Turner Construction, which is the most, which is one of the largest general contractors in the United States, focusing on commercial projects, which is, which included the International Orangutan Center here, right here in Indianapolis, at the Indianapolis Zoo and the Hinkle Fieldhouse renovation at Butler University.

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Additionally, Michael has served on numerous boards within the construction industry and served as the president of the Construction Management Advisory Board for Ball State University. Chirp, chirp there where he graduated in 2012. In 2021, Michael launched OKCS in Tampa, Florida, where he saw the need and the lack of high quality third party project management companies in the industry.

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Michael, thanks for joining me today. Yeah, thanks for having me, excited to be here. I appreciate it.

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You know, to kind of kick off the discussion. I mean, I did hit on your story a little bit, but fill in the gaps of there that I didn’t hit on about your journey to actually in the construction industry to where actually you started your own company. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

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Again, appreciate you having me. I’m excited to be here. Yeah, it’s it’s it’s wild to think I’ve been in the industry now almost 20 years, started, started in high school, you know, for a small residential builder.

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And that’s really started what drive my passion in the construction industry. You know, I remember back telling people I was going to go to college to be in the construction industry. And a lot of people laughed at that and said, well, you can you can you don’t need to go to college for that.

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You can just go out and get in the construction industry without a college degree. So that being said, you know, in 2008, I graduated from high school and went to Ball State to to to obtain a construction management degree. Best decision, you know, probably outside of marrying my wife and having a baby.

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It’s probably the best decision I ever made was was was chasing the industry. So spent four years at Ball State, graduated in 2012. After that, I really went into the commercial construction space working for Turner Construction, as you noted, a very large national and really international general contractor and spent most of my early career in the commercial space working on health care projects, stadium projects, unique projects like the International Orangutan Exhibit and really learn how to do things the right way from, you know, from a process standpoint.

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You know, when you’re working for a general contractor with that that that bigger backing, obviously they do everything detailed in the right way, just from, you know, a risk standpoint when you’re when you’re working for a company, you know, that big. So spent a few years with them. And then in 2015 is when I entered the multifamily space and really been focused mostly on that sector in the construction world.

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2015 is really urban mixed-use multifamily projects. We have you know, I have done some urban or some sorry, some garden style suburban product as well. But I would say, you know, most of my experience is in that urban space.

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So in 2015, I moved to Nashville, Tennessee and built a mid-rise, high-rise project there. 17-story, you know, large multifamily, 350 apartments and then an 880-room hotel, Kempton Hotel, right downtown Nashville. So that’s really what got me into the multifamily side and really love that kind of sector and really been in that sector, like I said, since 2015.

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So spent two years in Nashville building that project as a senior project manager. And then relocated to Florida. And that’s really what got started my background here in Tampa, Florida for Millhouse, which is a national developer, another developer out of Indianapolis.

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So all the companies I’ve worked for have been based out of Indianapolis, but sent me other places. And spent two years in Tampa, Florida from 2017 to 2019. And then in 2019, got the opportunity to move back to Indianapolis.

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For promotional, that’s like you noted, my most recent experience outside of OKCS. I was vice president of construction there. Oversaw all construction across the country for them.

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It was kind of two-fold. One division was our general contracting arm where we self-performed the general construction. So had full staffs of product managers, superintendents, et cetera.

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And then we had an arm that was our third-party arm that managed projects in geographical regions that didn’t make sense for us to build ourselves. So we’d manage a third-party general contractor for the internal developer of Millhouse. Spent two years in that role.

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Really enjoyed it. And was traveling all over the country, unfortunately, through interesting times with the pandemic. And then towards the end of 2020, early 21, two things.

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One, I saw a real need for third-party services for what I call mom-and-pop developers. They’re not really mom-and-pop, but they just don’t have the staff to manage design and construction. And really saw the need for that, especially in the Tampa market where there’s a lot of smaller developers that have to understand how to raise debt, raise equity, and develop unique products that don’t really have the inside in-house resources to manage the overall process.

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So that plus the travel in the previous role, we were the one to get stabilized in one market. So I wasn’t living out of a suitcase. So at the company in Tampa, OKCS, started in 2021, a little over a three-year-old company.

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And now we’re really serving small developers in that multifamily sector. We do do some other land development work and some product type outside of multifamily, but 90% of the work we do is multifamily. Right.

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And outside looking at your company from a growth strategy or marketing, but sales and business strategy, two things come to mind for you is your brand. And your partnerships and your relationships. I mean, that is really, it seems like that’s where you put your two feet in.

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You started, you built your brand, you reached out to us, we got you at least set up as a starting point as far as making sure that you can highlight your projects. And you basically went to work on the relationships of those projects. I mean, is that how you view a large part of your strategy and critical for a company like yours? Yeah, absolutely.

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I think we’re unique and there’s obviously numerous other businesses like us, but our product is our people. We’re not making a product. We’re not an assembly line making a product.

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We are basically a staffing company that provides really, I don’t know if that’s the right term, but we provide really good individuals with a lot of experience to help clients’ investments. And then from a branding standpoint, obviously we’ve partnered with Proof Digital, who’s been a great partner of ours. And from a branding perspective, I was fortunate enough to have a lot of the relationships in place to get work.

(9:47 – 10:06) 

We didn’t need to be at the top of Google to find clients. Most of our clients are really, but we use marketing and I don’t want to get too far ahead of the questions, but we use marketing in multiple different ways of just finding business, but also highlighting what we do. Reputability is a big thing.

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Our projects scale 100 plus million dollars. And when you have investors investing in these projects, you have to prove who you are, what you’ve done, and it’s really important to be able to present that in a professional fashion so that they have trust in us to manage these projects. Yeah, and I’ll pull up your site a little bit here too, as we talk about it.

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But I mean, just to show that the level of projects and the quality of projects that you’re talking about here. I mean, one thing I love about, again, about relationships and like you said, the credibility that exists with your company and experience all the way from negotiating contracts to your experience and, you know, from pre to post project of making sure that everybody’s going in the same direction. But you definitely have had a lot of projects here that I mean, I click on them and I’m in awe of the quality of projects here that you have.

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Any one of these you want to highlight just out of a fun kind of. Yeah, I mean, if you go back to the main page, I mean, it’s really cool to see this as you pull this up. I don’t look at our website very often.

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You know, obviously, other people are looking at it, but one of the top picture, it’s actually the highlight picture. The top is a picture of the code. You know, in our world, these projects take, you know, up to, you know, some of them could take four years from the completion.

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This is a perfect example. The code project was one of the very first projects we started working on. We’re actually moving in residence next week.

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That’s awesome. So it’s a it’s a 330 unit mixed use. Obviously, you can see retail on the bottom.

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It’s actually in Cape Coral, where there’s a huge need for living and there was already a huge need. And then obviously, you know, we had a disastrous hurricane that really hit Cape Coral. So, you know, housing is even at a higher need down there.

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So from a leasing standpoint, you know, it’s doing really well. Ownership’s extremely happy and it’s a project that’s, you know, it’s coming to fruition after working on it for three plus years. So that’s, you know, that’s a really, really cool one.

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And then Miles, it’s in the second row to the right. You know, this is another project we’ve been working on for three years and actually just opened up three weeks ago. So there’s people, you know, living in the building now.

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Really unique concept. This is actually a new concept that we haven’t done before. It’s called micro living.

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So it’s basically student housing for adults and business individuals. I like it. It’s an in-betweener between staying at a hotel.

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So the market class here is individuals who live in a different city but come here for Monday to Friday to work. Instead of staying in a hotel, they can get a micro unit that’s, you know, smaller but at a lot better rate and also cheaper than a hotel. They can keep their clothes there from stay to stay instead of checking out.

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So really unique project. So yes. I mean, yeah.

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I mean, you do a great job of highlighting the uniqueness of your projects, the multifamily focus, the great pictures that you have, the follow up. I follow you on Instagram. Love how you promote your clients and your partners.

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That’s just really good. I mean, that’s all good stuff about how to from a standpoint of making sure that you’re, you know, on those pages, you’re promoting your partners. You talk about those folks.

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And it’s really the that’s a business strategy and growth strategy to one, the credibility piece. Like you said, I mean, look at these projects. Look at our credentials as a people because your bios are on there and they’re extremely strong.

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That’s just really important for your industry. So I appreciate you sharing that. Absolutely.

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Insights. Absolutely. I’ve been super fortunate for digital has done for us.

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And you guys have been a great partner of ours and highlighting, you know, our expertise because we were construction people. We are definitely not website builders or anything like that. And it’s been extremely, extremely useful.

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Like I’ll highlight it again.  It’s not just people going to Google and searching. OK, yes.

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And that’s not a tool we use it for. It’s providing background proof of what we’ve done and what we can do to help assure investors that, you know, we are legit and we’ve done this before. Yeah.

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And that’s the big thing. I mean, it’s about credibility and it’s about helping them visualize what they get their dreams. They have the they have the investors.

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You talk a little about the investors. I mean, they have they have money. Right. And they and they realize real estate is a good place to put it. And so talk about some of those big milestones or from a standpoint of working with the investor community, because. Really, that’s your strategy, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure.

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And in the world we live in, you know, multifamily is usually when the market’s good, it’s it’s the best industry to be in. And when the market’s bad, it’s usually the first industry that takes the hit. So it’s a very, you know, it can be very volatile from an investment standpoint.

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So, you know, we have we have to be on our toes, you know, to be able to write projects, you know, even, you know, in a tighter market, you know, right now, just, you know, transparency, construction material, pricing’s up, interest rates are up. Yeah. The market we’re working in has the worst insurance rates across the United States.

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Yeah, you’re in Florida. So so it’s difficult, you know, deals, deals aren’t as easy as they were three, five, seven years ago. You know, we’re not into where we were 2012 by any means, but it’s 2008, I should say.

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But it’s so from an investor relationship standpoint, you know, as deals get tighter, you know, we have to work harder to convince and reaffirm to investors that what the package we’ve put together from a design and construction standpoint, we can build it for the price they were telling them we can because margins, you know, are thinner than they were five years ago. So, you know, yeah, it’s investor relationships and every project’s a little different. Some jobs will be one, you know, national investor that comes in and, you know, picks up the entire project from an investment standpoint.

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And then other projects are high net worth investors where they’re raising a true fund where it’s, you know, say you got a 40 million dollar, let’s just say a hundred million dollar project, usually from a debt to equity ratio is usually 60, 40, 60 percent debt, 40 percent investment and investment equity. So you’re raising 40 million dollars. You know, there’s some of these projects are our clients go out and, you know, raise 40 million dollars from a high net worth standpoint.

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So you could have a hundred investors making up that 40 million dollars. So those in those unique situations, you know, we’re, you know, we report to the developer, but at the end of the day, we’re really reporting to, you know, a hundred investors instead of one. So it’s a very unique world we live in that, you know, every project is different from who we’re representing, you know, entirely, you know, it could be a huge pool of individuals.

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From small family practice to professional athletes to, you know, numerous different investors to one, you know, larger investor. But back to your first point about being near a people business and your people have extreme, I mean, more than a lot of companies in your space who know how to negotiate those contracts, who know where the fat’s at, where and if somebody comes to the table and you’re like, they really don’t know what they’re doing. So here, by the way, we need to find somebody else here to work on this.

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I mean, you see through those things based on your people and your talent. Am I am I inaccurate on that? Yeah, no, I mean, we and that’s a huge part of why I started OKCS. And when I started, you know, one of the big things I determined early on that, you know, we are most everybody that works for me was a former executive that wanted to get out of the grind of traveling the country, the construction world and have a little bit, you know, better work life balance, but still doesn’t mind getting in the weeds of a project.

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So, you know, we we that’s where we differentiate ourselves in my opinion from our competition. You know, a typical third party owner’s rep is going to have a younger PM with not much experience on the project. And they may have a deeper bench above them, you know, executives all over the country.

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But we are our executive level team is boots on the ground of every project, you know, and that’s one reason why we are geographically located and not doing right all over the country is, you know, we’re pulling executives that want to get off the road. So the thing we want to do is take a project out west and all of a sudden put somebody back on the road, but have the ability to have executives that will live 15 minutes from a project site or 30 minutes. Right.

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Everything we do is within three hours max of Tampa. Right. Is right in this market.

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So, I mean, I think back to your initial question, that’s everything for us, you know, is our employees. You know, if I lose I lost my staff tomorrow, KCS doesn’t exist. You know, it’s we are selling individuals who are extremely knowledgeable and capable of executing large multi hundred million dollar plus projects in this sector.

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Now that’s and that’s great. And every business, I mean, it is our people. And I have the same people.

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If I don’t have a good person on a design or a piece or but your projects are very complex and have a lot of different skill sets across multiple different areas. I mean, contract, understand, construction, understand. I mean, just you talked about insurance.

(20:25 – 20:48) 

I mean, just lots of complexities, which your team brings. And it’s important to market that and to tell those folks about that. And what are some what are some challenges you see in the near future as a as a business owner or in the construction space in general? Yeah, I mean, the biggest challenge right now is just market conditions, but that’s cyclical, right? Like that.

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It is. That’s going to come around, you know, in my market conditions, you know, the economy is still in a fine spot. It’s not that strong.

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Factors. There’s some factors in our specific industry and even a market standpoint, you know, that’s not across the country. That’s just something we’re dealing with here.

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So I don’t even like saying that. I think our biggest hurdle is people. And when I say people, not our specific team, the trade industry, you know, the individuals that are actually out there, there’s a huge, huge, massive shortage.

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It is. It’s a huge issue. Yeah.

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And there’s numerous reasons why I won’t get into every single reason why. But, you know, if there’s any if there’s any young kids, I say kids, you know, you know, young adults out there that think that you have to go to college to be successful. I 100 percent disagree with that.

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You know, I think there’s an industry. There’s lots of, you know, opportunities in our industry to make very, very good money and have very successful careers and retire at a very good rate by getting into the trades. And I think that’s the biggest thing that that our specific industry is going to have issues with.

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Yeah. We’re in a place where, you know, material pricing is up with the labor shortage. Labor is slowly creeping up.

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It’s only going to get worse, which is an advantage to young individuals that want to go into the industry because the rates are continuing, which not to say that they deserve them. But that’s that’s the biggest thing we’re facing is qualified trades, you know, qualified individuals to actually perform the work in the field. You know, the shortage is coming.

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And I don’t know the figures, but I’m sure if you look up the figures, the vast majority of the people still working in the trades are towards the higher end of their upper end of their career versus, you know, just started in that industry. So, you know, that’s the biggest thing from a construction standpoint that I see as a right. And companies are going to I mean, from a marketing standpoint, we work with companies a lot, not only on promoting what they work with, but promoting the culture in which they they have so that they you know, you recruit those talented individuals and, you know, trades or any I mean, there’s lots of things.

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I mean, you think of those electrical plumbers, you know, masons, but there’s so many other also in the trades. Again, it’s a high quality pay jobs oftentimes in those in those in those professions. So I think it’s yeah, it’s going to be a challenge for for your especially in your market that you’re in right now.

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So that’s that’s interesting. So who are your mentors, Michael? I mean, how did I mean, I’m shifting gears a little bit here. What what kind of got you to think about, you know, I can do this.

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I’m going to I’m going to I’m going I’m I see some gaps here. Yeah, for sure. You know, I have a lot of mentors and I, you know, extremely thankful for all of them.

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You know, it started at Ball State. I went to a program that just literally gave me so many opportunities that I, you know, never could have dreamed about. And, you know, that’s why I still stay involved with the program.

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Yeah, one of the best in the country for construction management. Totally still talk to all the professors. So, you know, Ball State construction management program, you know, top notch.

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So, you know, I still have mentors in the program that made a lot of the initial connections. And then, you know, once I got out in the industry, I’ve had some really good bosses and some some really good individuals that I’ve worked with that cared more about my growth than, you know, what I was going to be for the company. And that’s that’s hard to find.

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You know, a lot of times you’re just a number and it doesn’t matter, you know, who you are. They feel like you’re replaceable, right? Well, I’ve been super fortunate to have some bosses that have cared more about my future than than what I was, you know, what what the need was for the company. You know, James Benny, one of my really good friend of mine who I worked for at two companies, actually switched companies when he made a switch.

(25:20 -25:26) 

You know, that’s how good a mentor is. I still talk to him not on a weekly basis, but probably a monthly basis. He’s just been an extraordinary mentor to me.

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He oversaw construction millhouse and I actually ended up, you know, luckily and fortunate enough, ended up taking his role when he left. And he was a huge part of that. You know, he was even though he was out the door and didn’t need to care, he was vouching, you know, for me to take that seat, you know, from afar.

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So he’s been a huge mentor. Mike Fox at the Flaherty & Collins, who I work for at Buckingham, huge mentor. Brad Chambers, owner of Buckingham, who actually just ran for governor of the Republican ticket primary.

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Mentor of mine, still stay connected with him as well. So super fortunate. And the last one, probably Mike Mintzberg. Honestly, he’s my main client here in Florida. Him and I connected. He was actually doing some land acquisition work for millhouse when I was at the millhouse.

(26:20 – 26:37) 

And a huge reason OKCS came about, you know, he kind of called me, checking in on me and said, hey, there’s a real need. Really kind of helped spark the idea. You know, he’s a small business owner down here in Tampa, Florida, whose company size is almost identical to OKCS.

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But he’s on the development side of work. We actually manage all of his design and construction for all work he’s doing. But he’s a few years older than me.

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I saw what he had done in a short period of time in the real estate industry. And, you know, he gave me, you know, kind of light at the end of the tunnel to pull the bandaid off and make the make the plunge out of corporate America into the, you know, owning your own business. So. So, yeah, I’ve been super fortunate. A lot of people, family’s been super supportive. So obviously my wife, you know, when I told her we weren’t married at the time, but when I told her I was getting a salary that was guaranteed, you know, she was extremely supportive.

(27:19 – 27:28) 

So, yeah, I’ve been super, super lucky on the mentor side, super lucky on the support side for family, et cetera. So I couldn’t be more happy. And I don’t want to say this in a bad way.

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Like there is a lot of good opportunities in the standard, you know, corporate America working for corporations. But it was the best decision I ever made. And just it gives you so much more opportunity.

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And it really what it does, it allows you to do what you want to do every day. You know, there’s a lot of opportunities out there right now that we could take. We are super selective on who we work with because we work more than we, than we play.

(28:00 – 28:14) 

And we, if we’re not enjoying what we’re doing, then it’s not worthwhile. So we’re super fortunate that we’re super selective in who we work with to make sure that, you know, we enjoy who we’re working with every day. And circling back to the marketing or sales standpoint.

(28:18 – 28:44) 

I mean, we talked about brand and your brand and highlighting your partnership and,  and to feed in on your partnerships and then your team. But being selective of who you work with is, is, is not only a business strategy, but it’s a, it’s a marketing and sales strategy too, from my standpoint, because I mean, you, I’ve had folks and I’m sure you have too, that maybe it was good money, but boy, they drained a whole heck of a lot of energy. And it didn’t turn out, you know, the way you wanted in the end.

(28:48 – 29:02) 

So I think from a business strategy to marketing strategy, just don’t take everything that comes your way, because that’s not the right business decision either. Absolutely. We’re, you know, when I, when I started OKCS, there’s no intention to build this, you know, some national, you know, third party company that manages construction design.

(29:06 – 29:18) 

We are, you know, I focus growth, not on revenue. I focus growth on how do we get more strategic to, to hire the profit. The revenue can stay the same for all I care.

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It’s the profit. One, two, are we enjoying what we’re doing? Because I could go out and hire three more people and take on nine more projects next year. I mean, there’s opportunities out there, but I would be working a lot more, stressed out.

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And who knows if the profit increases anymore? That’s right. There could be, there could be losses. Our revenue might be up, but I’m not sleeping.

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Right. And managing, you know, people that may not fit on OKCS. We may be working for clients that aren’t the right fit for us.

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So we are very strategic on growth. You know, we’ve been fortunate that our revenue, you know, our revenue growth slash profit growth has gone up every single year since we started the company. And we’ve been super fortunate to allow that.

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But I would absolutely take a decline in revenue if needed to maintain, you know, who we’re working with, we’re enjoying it and who is on the OKCS staff. Yep. Yep.

(30:23 – 30:37) 

Smart growth. Smart growth. Absolutely. Smart growth. Okay. Michael, you’ve given our time and I really appreciate it. I mean, it’s, you have a great company. It’s focused on people. It’s focused on partnerships.

(30:38 – 31:00) 

It’s focused on strategic growth. Any last, I mean, this is Proof Point. Any last points that you would want to send to, you know, those in the, especially in the construction industry as you think about the coming year 2025 or sooner? Yeah.

(31:03 – 31:30)

You know, I think that it’s, we’re in a very, the construction, when I say construction, the real estate construction design, you know, I always say construction, but we’re really, we’re in the legal world, we’re in the housing world, we’re in the construction world, the real estate world, you know, development world. You know, I think in our world or in our industry right now, I think that it’s not the next, I think we’ve already kind of been in it for six months. I think we’re probably looking at another four to six months or a little tougher to get done or deals.

(31:34 – 31:45) 

Absolutely. I mean, we have three condo high-rises breaking ground downtown Tampa right now that are 30 plus stories. Like there’s still opportunities and that’s across the U.S. There’s still opportunities.

(31:47 – 32:13) 

They’re just not being spoon fed like they were three years ago where you could do anything and make money basically. So, you know, I think that market corrections are a good thing and market settling down is a good thing because sometimes you get it going so fast that things are getting done in a manner that’s probably not the way to do it. So we’re really focusing right now on how to be more efficient, how to be more strategic, how to do things, use AI to our advantage.

(32:16 – 32:28) 

Yes. Without there that, how do we get better than our competition so that, you know, as things pick back up, that it’s a no brainer and we can, you know, continue to get the products we want to get. You know, I think that’s our main focus right now.

(32:31 – 33:01) 

And then I think that kind of going back to your earlier statement about the industry, I think that, you know, like I said, if there’s any young adults out there listening, there’s just a magnitude of opportunities in this industry on the skilled trade sides, on the construction side, on the design side, on the real estate side. You know, I think it’s a great industry to be in. And, you know, I hope that a lot of young adults continue to come in this industry because building’s never going to stop.

(33:04 – 33:08) 

Real estate’s never going to stop. The only problem is we can’t make real estate. So real estate continues to get more expensive.

(33:12 – 33:19) 

But yeah, we’ll continue to build forever. So there’s a lot of opportunities, you know, in the market and industry. Awesome. Awesome.

(33:20 – 33:31) 

Well, we’ve been talking to Michael Key. Michael, thank you for joining The Proof Point Podcast. It’s been a lot of fun. Thanks again for having me. And thanks for everything for David Lesbro from PCS.

(33:34 – 33:42) 

Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for listening to The Proof Point Podcast. We’ll see you again next time. And be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.